anyone actually searching with an image on google successfully?

yep, it's google lens now. in chrome right-click any image and choose search with google lens. on the google images page there's a camera icon in the search box where you can upload a file or paste an image url. on the phone it's the lens icon in the google app. the thing that makes it actually useful is dragging the box to crop just the part you care about (the shoe, not the whole photo). results get much better.